Sky and Water
by Dayja
Summary: "Blood of the friend, forcibly taken, you will resurrect your ally." Voldemort is resurrected. It doesn't go exactly like in the books. This is what happens when I read a bunch of 'good Voldemort, evil Dumbledore' stories, and then try to imagine what it would actually be like for a good Severus Snape in such a universe during the 13 years spent alone at Dumbledore's side.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer** : I do not own/am not associated with/make no money from _Harry Potter_.

 **Warnings** : Non-con (in the sense of non-consensual intrusion into a person's mind, altercation of their memories, and curses; there is no physical rape in this story), torture, though honestly nothing worse than what you'd find in the books

 **Chapter 1**

Harry Potter, wounded and alone, didn't know what to do. Cedric was lying so still, perhaps even dead, and Peter Pettigrew had bound Harry so tightly he couldn't move an inch while the spider poison throbbed in his injured leg. Not that spider poison was the worst of his worries at that moment. Wormtail was going to bring Voldemort back to life. It was happening now, in this graveyard far from all Harry's friends and guardians, far from anyone who could help, and there was absolutely nothing Harry could do to stop it.

"Bone of the ancestor, unknowingly given, you will renew your son."

Pettigrew took a bone from a grave and put it within the giant cauldron which had just claimed the grotesque, infantile thing that was Voldemort. The bone still had dirt and bits of cloth clinging to it and Harry had a momentary and rather bizarre thought of what Professor Snape would say about potion ingredients and contamination, and despite the way his very blood felt frozen in his veins, he had to fight the urge not to break out into mad laughter.

"Flesh of the enemy, willingly given, you will revive your foe."

Hearing the need for 'flesh of the enemy' greatly helped in ending his inappropriate mirth, as Pettigrew pulled out a sharp silver knife. He didn't approach Harry with it, though. Instead, he held his own arm over the cauldron, his hand held in a tight fist, and to Harry's shock the knife sliced through his wrist in one quick move, sending the fist into the cauldron and a spurt of blood strong enough to splatter an angel several feet away.

Harry had shut his eyes just in time to miss the actual cut but nothing could disguise the plop of the hand in the liquid, just half a second before Pettigrew screamed, and then screamed again. Harry opened his eyes and saw the blood splatter, saw the dark stain on Pettigrew's robes where his arm was huddled, somehow blacker than black. Pettigrew's face was white and twisted in such agony that Harry couldn't help but feel he should feel a bit sorry for him. Instead, all Harry could think was that if that was what Pettigrew had to do to himself, how much worse would he be doing to Harry? The writhing form of Peter Pettigrew was crawling towards him, knife still in hand.

"Blood of the friend, forcibly taken, you will resurrect your ally."

The knife was so sharp that Harry barely felt the cut. Pettigrew's words danced around his head. Ally? Friend? In no way could Harry ever be considered a friend to Voldemort. And Pettigrew had called himself an enemy. Could it be that he had messed up the words to this horrible ritual? Would it be enough to ruin the results? Please let it be enough.

Pettigrew poured Harry's blood into the cauldron and the entire concoction started sparking. This was followed an eruption of white steam. And then, from the steam, a form emerged rising from the cauldron. It was as tall as a man, flesh white, almost skeletal thin.

"Robe me," said a voice, a man's voice, deep and commanding but somewhat hoarse as though it had been used too much, or, possibly, as though it hadn't been used for a very long time. Wormtail took a black robe from the ground, flailing a bit as he tried to get it over his master's head. By the time the figure was clothed, most of the white mist had dissipated.

It was Tom Riddle grown up. He was emaciated, but still a man, not a grown form of the grotesque snake-like thing he had grown from. He had dark hair and dark, hard eyes and he radiated with an inner power that belied his sickly, wasted form.

Voldemort was back.

Voldemort looked at Harry, an insane grin marring what might have been handsome features, and then he turned away to marvel at his new body, flexing his fingers and running them over his face, his nose, his hair.

"It worked!" he cried. "The old fool! His very actions aided me in the most impossible ritual known to magic. A willing enemy? An unwilling friend? And yet here I stand, a man in my prime, no half measures, no more cursed life."

"Master," gurgled Pettigrew, now curled pathetically on the ground at his feet, his robe soaked through with blood, "Master…please. You promised…"

Voldemort stopped in his gleeful monologue to look down at him, his face twisting rapidly from rapture to disgust.

"I suppose I should thank you," he said. "I am myself because of you. And yet, the very fact that Magic accepted your sacrifice is absolute proof of your disloyalty. If you did not consider me your enemy, your flesh would not have worked. Still… I can't have you dying for it."

He drew a wand from the pocket of his robe, a look of ecstasy taking him over before his features settled into something slightly less insane. He pointed the wand at Pettigrew, gesturing an unknown silent spell, and Pettigrew went from rigid agony to slumped unconsciousness. For all Harry knew, he had killed him, though the light hadn't been green like the killing curse.

Voldemort bent over the still form and grabbed up an arm. It turned out to be the stump, no longer gushing out blood, and Harry saw his face grimace with disgust before he dropped the arm, shoving the man over with his foot so he could grab the left one instead. The sleeve to his robe slipped down as the arm was lifted up, revealing a grotesque tattoo. Voldemort touched his finger to it and then let the arm fall. Then, almost as an afterthought, he used a similar spell to the one Pettigrew must have used on Harry earlier, trussing the unconscious man up with ropes.

And then Voldemort was looking at Harry again, stepping over the still form of Wormtail to walk right up to him.

"You must be quite confused and horrified at this moment," the man said. "The blood of a friend, forcibly taken." His wand delicately moved towards Harry's arm and the place where Pettigrew had sliced. There was an almost benign expression on his face as a warm blue light flowed into the wound, and what little pain had made it through the icy feeling in Harry's chest eased away.

"The 'friend' and 'ally' bit actually refers to your parents, of course. I know you don't consider us either, but the very fact you carry their blood is enough for it to work. And of course, if we had been compatriots, as we should have been, the blood couldn't have been 'forcibly taken' to resurrect me. It wouldn't matter if you said 'yes' or 'no', Magic would have known you wanted it done, and your blood would have been rejected. So many conditions that should have been impossible…I had a backup plan, of course, but not a satisfying one, and it would have left me half cursed, at best, little better than that creature I had been reduced to before."

Harry glared, wanting nothing more than to shout curses at the man, but Wormtail had been thorough in tying him up, including a gag. His parents had never been allied to Voldemort. They had certainly never been friends. Voldemort had murdered them. Being unable to answer, he settled on a strong and defiant glare.

Instead of growing annoyed or retaliating, Voldemort threw his head back and laughed.

"Poor misguided child," he said, which garnered an even harsher glare. "You would tell me how your parents were heroes, fighting against the big bad bogeyman of the magical world, how they couldn't have been my friends. It's a fairytale, child, a lie you would want to believe. Things are never so black and white as stories would tell us. Yes, your parents were heroes. Yes, they fought against a monster. But that monster was never me."

There was a sound, like air being displaced very quickly, and then again and again. They weren't alone. People cloaked in robes and masks filled the graveyard. They stood in silence, just looking at the scene. Voldemort turned and faced them. At least one of them took a startled half step back, and two of them dropped to their knees. Harry thought he even heard one of them choking back a sob, though whether they reacted from joy or horror it was hard to tell through the masks.

"My loyal Deatheaters," Voldemort said, his own voice triumphant. Those still standing dropped to their knees as well, and they crawled on the ground until they formed a circle around him, albeit a circle with some large gaps, as though waiting for more people to join them. Voldemort walked around them, pausing to call each by name. He paused at the gaps as well, remarking upon those missing. Some were imprisoned. Some were dead. And some…

"Three missing here," Voldemort said. "One too afraid to return, I will need him brought to me before I can decide what is to be done with him. One who I fear is lost to us; we will save him if we can. And one most loyal of my servants, without whom I never could have returned. It is he who sent me the Dark Lord's pawn."

And he turned once again to Harry, smiling manically, before his face transformed abruptly to fury, a hint of insanity in the abrupt change as he spun back around to face his followers.

"And why did I need him to fetch away the child of Lily and James Potter?" he demanded. "Why do my loyal followers stand here, free to come or to go, and it took a traitor of both sides and a half mad, long imprisoned child to aid me in my return? Where were all of you when I was cast adrift as a bodiless spirit, unable to do more than wander the wilds? Where were you when a child of our circle was stolen away, left to grow up alone and ignorant of all our ways, left to the whims of the darkest wizard of our age?!"

"We tried," the cloaked figure Voldemort had revealed to be Malfoy answered, still on his knees. "I applied to the ministry as a blood relative of Potter. I was denied by Dumbledore's machinations. He used blood magic none could counter to hide the boy."

"I cast the strongest scrying charms I could manage for the both of you," a second death eater cried, a woman's voice this time, who Harry thought vaguely had been referred to as 'Goyle'. "No sign could be discovered. The best I could discover was that you were not dead!"

"Ha!" Voldemort answered, and then he swayed, the closest of his death eaters jerking towards him instinctively to help, before drawing back again, obviously uncertain. Voldemort bowed his head as he steadied himself. "I apologize. I may still be a bit…off kilter from the ritual."

The death eaters continued to kneel in their circle for a moment longer, just looking at their leader, and then Malfoy slowly pulled himself to his feet, going to Voldemort and cautiously placing a hand on the man's shoulder. Harry waited for Voldemort to react with the same ferocious insanity he had been showing up to that point, for him to curse the man for his daring, but no such attack came. If anything, Voldemort slumped towards Malfoy, allowing him to take some of his weight.

"My master," Malfoy said, his voice soft, gentle. "My friend. You are returned to us. The Potters' boy is among us at last. Let us take him, take you, to my manor. Even now, it is beyond the dark lord's reach. There, you will be able to regain your strength."

"There is still so much to be done," Voldemort murmured. "Azkaban must be emptied. The remainder of my followers must be returned. The boy must be taught…untaught…checked for dark curses…" He sounded exhausted. Weak. Human. Not the way Harry ever imagined such an evil man could sound.

"All will be done," Malfoy answered. "But a miracle has occurred on this day. You have been returned to us. Let us make sure this miracle can't be undone first. If Severus were here, he'd already be forcing potions down your throat."

"If Severus were here, that would be one less worry for me to attend to, one less atrocity to be avenged," Voldemort answered back. "Impertinent brat." Then he sighed, leaning even further into Malfoy even as a second death eater leapt to his feet and came to his other side.

Harry felt a bit off kilter himself, going from abject terror, to horror, to confusion. Why did they keep talking about him like someone to be saved? And was this how Voldemort acted among his followers, how his followers acted towards him? Nothing was happening as it should be. Voldemort should be gloating over his triumph. Voldemort should have been the sort of person who would rather keel over than accept help. Voldemort should have been raging or lording it over everyone, perhaps casting crucio at his groveling and terrified followers. This…this was all wrong.

Unwillingly, Harry felt something stirring deep within him: doubt. It fought with everything he believed, everything he knew, everything he had learned for the past four years, and yet like a weed it took hold, and refused to be rooted out. It was watered and fed by the fact that it would not be the first time what 'everyone knew' turned out to be completely wrong. His godfather was not the betrayer of his parents, after all. But if the story hadn't unfolded as he had been told the first time, nor the changed version of the second, what was the truth? Sirius certainly believed Pettigrew had betrayed his parents to Voldemort, and here Pettigrew was to suggest that was true. Surely that meant Voldemort killed his parents. So why did they keep referring to the Potters as one of them?

Thus Harry had rather mixed feelings when a white faced but very much alive Cedric Diggory suddenly popped up from behind the gravestone, grabbed Harry's arm, and called, 'Accio cup!'

Harry had just enough time to see Voldemort's expression of shock before the portkey jerked them away and slammed them back in the maze. Harry's fingers dug into the earth, his heart beating hard, while he waited for the world to feel right again. The ropes had been left behind he noted, but somehow he still couldn't make his limbs work properly to lift himself up. It was as though his body was reacting to the entirety of everything that had just happened all at once, and the addition of being jolted about by a portkey was simply too much on top of everything else. His leg, which he had almost forgotten about up to that point, was suddenly in agony, throbbing with his heartbeat.

Cedric lay next to him, his hand squeezing his arm so hard that it would probably bruise, his lungs wheezing in quick gasps.

"Harry?" a voice cried, and Dumbledore was there, warm hands grasping Harry's shoulders.

 _But that's not right_ , Harry thought a bit muzzily. It wasn't even that he half feared the man might not be the benevolent grandfatherly figure Harry had always supposed him to be. It was much simpler than that: why was the headmaster checking on one of his students and ignoring the other completely?

"Is Harry alright?" Cedric gasped out weakly, still clinging tightly to Harry and the cup as he slowly recovered from the ordeal. "It was You Know Who…You Know Who was there. Stunned me with something. Woke up and saw Harry, tied up, bloody. Cup was a portkey. Had to get us back."

"Boy's talking absolute nonsense," said a new voice; Minister Fudge had joined them. "What is going on?"

That is something Harry very much wanted to know. Dumbledore kept trying to make him look at him, concern etched across his face, but Harry couldn't quite manage to look the man in the eye. Too many doubts now festered inside him, too much confusion. It made him feel at once distrustful and guilty for feeling distrustful, and for both reasons he turned his head instead to look at Cedric. Cedric was sitting up, looking back, his face pale with horror and tight with pain. Whether that pain came from whatever had been used to stun him in the graveyard, or something from the maze, Harry didn't know.

"You're not dead," Harry said, a bit surprised himself at how gruff his voice sounded. He supposed it came from being forced to wear a gag for so long. His mouth felt cottony and dried out, his throat ragged. "I thought you might be dead."

"I thought I might be, too," Cedric answered. There was a growing crowd around them, professors mostly, though Harry could hear students in the background, a sea of worried questions whispering in the distance. Someone was trying to get Cedric to let go of the cup, to let go of Harry, but Cedric didn't seem capable of doing either. Harry couldn't blame him. After all that had happened, it felt good to be tethered to something solid.

"Voldemort is back," he said out loud. "But he didn't kill us." He still didn't make any move to sit up, feeling unaccountably tired, his head still muzzy. In fact, it was starting to throb along with his leg, right where his scar was located.

"Potter?" said a voice, and then there were more voices, McGonagall trying to call attention to Harry's leg, someone else suggesting the hospital wing, Dumbledore telling him once again to look at him.

"Drink this," a cold voice ordered, shoving a vial at Harry's lips while another hand abruptly tilted his head upwards, and then a potion was being poured down his throat and Harry found himself swallowing it reflexively before he could decide whether that was actually a good idea or not. The hand holding his head dropped it as soon as the potion was downed.

"And you," the voice ordered, thrusting a second vial at Cedric, and Harry thought it was good that at least one of the professors seemed as concerned with Cedric as he was with Harry. That was about all he had time to think before whatever was in the potion started to take effect. Whatever it was, it had a soporific property to it and instead of his head growing clearer, he could feel the world falling away. That was nice because the pain in his spider bite was suddenly agonizing and the chance to escape that was one he'd gladly take.

"Harry? Harry!" someone called, but to no avail, because the last of his awareness fell away and he was asleep.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Severus Snape, the one-time spy of the Dark Lord Voldemort, now the faithful servant to the great and benevolent Albus Dumbledore, had been doing his job walking about the maze to keep a watchful eye out for students in peril, when his arm started to burn. He felt a momentary but incredibly strong urge to dash away, go follow the pull of the dark mark, and if he had been someplace where it was actually possible to apparate, he might very well have gone. Of course, that would have been foolish and deadly to do so, at least until such time as he could fabricate some sort of proof so that the Dark Lord might possibly believe him when he said he hadn't turned against him. Dark lords, after all, weren't known for their great forgiveness, and he could still remember the insane fury in the man's face while Severus writhed in pain before the power of his crucio.

As it turned out, his avoidance of returning to his old master's side turned out not to spare him after all, because suddenly the pull of his dark mark wasn't just pulling, it was burning. Pain was suddenly crawling up his arm and enfolding him, diving into his brain. For one infinitely long moment, all Severus could feel was pain; it was burning him away, tearing his very being apart, and if it had allowed more than the thought of 'ow, ow, ow', he might have supposed the Dark Lord had found a way to kill him for his betrayal after all. If he had thought such a thing, it would probably have been followed with the thought of 'well, hurry up and kill me, then' because 'ow!'.

It was only as the pain started to taper off into merely migraine level that Severus became aware of the world again. The awareness found him curled up on the ground, his throat raw, his face wet, and someone's hands grasping his shoulders firmly.

"Master Snape?" said a voice, a strangely concerned voice considering Severus had finally managed to take in his situation enough to recognize the man.

"Moody?" Severus answered, his throat ragged, and he rather suspected he had just been screaming moments before. He was a bit surprised, actually, that there weren't more people about, coming to see what was going on.

He still felt a bit like he was on fire, like a part of him had been burned away, but he hadn't had the time yet to figure out exactly what. Slowly, he forced his trembling muscles to pull him upright off the ground before anyone else could see him like that. It was bad enough that a man like Moody, a man who Severus was certain hated him, who had never forgiven him for his past, had seen him like this. Moody wasn't acting like he hated Severus though. He was helping him to sit up, and as much as Severus wanted to sneer that he didn't need the man's help, he did a bit.

The world just became a bit more surreal when Severus realized part of the reason he had such trouble sitting himself up was because one of his hands was clinging to the other arm, clinging to his dark mark. He forced his fingers to pry open, and then he couldn't help but look to see what was there. He half expected his arm to look burnt, but the only difference was in his mark. It was as bright and solid as the day he got it.

"So he is back, then," Moody said, his voice sounding all wrong, almost manically gleeful.

"It would seem so," Severus managed to answer, grimacing at the pain still throbbing inside his head, at the way his throat burned with his words. "Are you going to arrest me now?"

"What? No…no, of course not. I suppose we'd better get you cleaned up before anyone notices us. No, slowly, slowly, we don't need to rush. I cast a silencing charm when you started screaming and they're all at the maze center anyway where the boys vanished with the portkey. It'll be at least a few minutes before anyone goes looking for us."

"What? Portkey?" Severus demanded, trying to stumble to his feet in spite of Moody's attempt to keep him sitting a moment longer. His muscles still trembling almost violently and Severus finally had enough presence of mind to reach into his pocket and pull out a vial of his own brewing, one that should ease the pain and settle his nerves. It was one he always had on him as he was unfortunately prone to migraines.

It didn't have quite the same clarifying effect it usually did; his head still felt two sizes too big and his thoughts still felt cloudy, but the pain did recede and he could feel his muscles relaxing, the constant trembling easing away and allowing him to at least resemble his usual strong self.

"What boys, what portkey?" Severus demanded, his long strides already taking him towards the nearest maze wall. He pulled out his wand, ready to blast the stupid hedges out of the way, no matter that they had all been taught how to ask the plants to move aside when they needed by.

"Master Snape, hold on, at least clean your face," Moody shouted as he limped after him with far less grace than the man usually managed. His magical eye was pointed at what Severus supposed was the area where all the action was taking place, but his real eye was firmly on Severus. He had the same oddly concerned expression, and that threw Severus. Did he really look so bad that a man who hated him wanted to help?

"What is wrong with my face?" he demanded, bringing his hand up to check and found it wet and tacky, and all at once he realized he could smell blood.

"Nothing, nothing, just a little nose bleed" Moody crooned, almost as though he were trying to soothe him. It had the opposite effect, freaking Severus out even more. What was wrong with the man? Severus jerked backwards when Moody aimed his wand at his face, instinctively distrustful, but all the man did was cast a gently cleaning spell. It left his face clean but smelled unpleasantly of flowers. While Severus was still wrinkling his nose and trying not to sneeze, Moody got the hedges to open up for them.

By the time they made it to the maze's center, the mild but contained commotion from two champions vanishing at their moment of glory had become an uproar as the two champions unexpectedly reappeared. Luckily, most of the crowd was still held back by the maze and the natural barrier of the stands, though their voices could be heard in a low roar. That wouldn't last though; already the maze was starting to shut itself down, boxing in the dangerous creatures and enchantments while clearing the rest of the pitch to give the viewers a better view of their winner, just as it had been designed to do.

At the center of all the commotion was Harry Potter, of course he was, and Cedric Diggory. Diggory looked to be in pain, quite likely in shock, his hands in tight fists around the winning cup and his companion. Potter looked, from the distance, like he might actually be dead.

Dumbledore was there as well, leaning over Potter like a vulture…no, of course not like a vulture, like a concerned grandfather. Of course he was concerned; he loved the boy even if he always felt the need to keep him at a distance. Severus knew that, just like he knew he himself rather hated the little James Potter clone even as he knew he had to keep him safe.

Why was his headache returning? That potion should have been good for twenty-four hours at least. Something was wrong. More wrong than his dark mark trying to kill him, more wrong than Moody showing concern for him, more wrong than two of his students being kidnapped and then returned under their professors' very noses.

Protect Potter. He had an oath to Dumbledore to do that. Something in the very core of his being said to do that. Was the boy dead? No. Severus's long strides had taken him up to the group now, the Minister of Magic dithering uselessly in the background, his fellow professors offering a bit more sense, trying to suggest the hospital wing. Diggory was sitting up, Potter continued to lie down but his eyes were open, his head tilted to look at the other boy.

"Harry? Look at me, Harry," the headmaster said. Of course; he needed to know what had happened, how Voldemort had come back, and the simplest way to do that would be to see it in the boy's mind. Severus should help Dumbledore. Dumbledore wanted him to protect Harry.

His visual assessment coupled with a quick charm told him Potter was suffering from spider venom, a small amount of blood loss, and a multitude of bruises. The spider venom was the most concerning, but he already had some anti-venom on him. After all, the professors all knew what sort of creatures would inhabit the maze, and Severus had prepared accordingly.

A similar assessment of Diggory told him the boy also had some bruises and scratches, as well as a very mild concussion, and he was in the beginning stages of shock. Honestly, what was wrong with other people? The boys should have been taken to Pomfrey immediately. He was a bit surprised she hadn't stormed over to them herself, before he remembered the other two champions currently in her care. Still, he himself had some training, and he had the potions on hand, though he'd have to summon Diggory's from his lab.

He gave Potter the anti-venom first, side-stepping the headmaster's continued attempts to get the boy to look at him. It was just as well; Dumbledore might be a great man who always looked to the greater good, but he must not have realized the damage he could do probing the boy's vulnerable mind at this time.

Diggory was actually more difficult; the boy was far more lucid and did not seem inclined towards trust.

"Drink," Severus growled again, "Or do you want to suffer irreparable brain damage for that concussion?" He was exaggerating, of course, and in fact the developing shock was the more concerning of his symptoms, but at least the boy finally accepted the potion. And it did happen to help, slightly, with concussions. It just happened to do far more to calm and relax and ease the cold that currently seized the boy's limbs.

"Harry?!" the headmaster called again as the potion did its work and sent the boy into a deep sleep.

"What was that?" Cedric Diggory demanded, his voice filled with suspicion even as he benefited from his own potion and color began to return to his ashen face once more. "Did you poison him for your Dark Lord?! Harry!"

"It was anti-venom to counteract the spider bite, as you might have known had you paid more attention in class," Severus answered; the instinct to instruct running deeper than his instinct to remain aloof and antisocial. "It includes many of the same properties as a Dreamless Sleep potion because any form of pain reliever would have a deleterious effect combined with the crushed fangs, rendering the potion toxic. Shall I wake him up now and allow him to experience the excruciating pain that accompanies toxic expulsion?"

"Surely the anti-venom could have waited a few minutes, Severus," Dumbledore said, giving him a fatherly look of disappointment that dug into his headache. "The boys have had a shock. It might have been beneficial to hear them out before knocking them out."

"Mr. Diggory is still perfectly lucid after his potion," Severus pointed out, refusing to react to his mentor's reproach and completely ignoring the small throbs of pain as his migraine threatened to return. "More so, in fact. I thought you wanted them treated for their ailments as swiftly as possible. Or did you want your golden boy to lose the use of his leg?"

"There are more ailments than the physical," Dumbledore answered wisely, "Sometimes the ailments of the psyche must take precedence."

Severus merely shrugged, his expression smooth of any worry or care, though a look of disgust did form as Diggory's parents finally managed to join them, demanding answers in frantic voices.

"Ceddy? Ceddy, baby, are you alright? What was in that maze? What's going on?!"

"Shall we get the boys to the hospital wing?" Moody suggested, looking far more his old self as he glanced at the crowd of students and parents and then at the rapidly diminishing hedge barriers. Already, a couple of the more athletic and adventurous students had made it down to the pitch, though they hadn't quite dared to approach them yet.

"But what happened?" Fudge demanded, seeing his chance for questioning the only witnesses dwindling as Diggory's parents managed start pulling him away towards the school and Moody conjured up a stretcher for Potter.

"Are you a nitwit or just hard of hearing?" Moody demanded of the man while Severus levitated Harry onto the waiting stretcher, rather glad that this time he wouldn't be required to carry the brat himself. "You heard the boy. The cup was a portkey. Voldemort is back!"

"Don't talk nonsense!" Fudge exclaimed, though his expression of fear belied his words. "He can't be back! He was destroyed! Here, Dumbledore, where are you going!"

"With my students," Dumbledore answered simply and logically, one of his hands resting on Potter's gurney as it bobbed gently in the air. The boy looked ghastly on top of it, his arm stained with blood, his leg oozing. He would need blood replenishment soon; the potion Severus had given him would help his body to eject the venom and heal what the venom had harmed, but it would do so by expelling it through the open wound, and quite a bit of blood would go with it. They couldn't stop the bleeding until the venom was completely gone.

"What about all the other students?!" Fudge shouted back, apparently immune to Dumbledore's calm logic. "What about their parents?! What about the dangerous creatures of the task! What about that supposed portkey? What do we do?!"

Severus felt something like surprise that he barely managed to keep out of his expression. Fudge was a complete idiot, but he was also right. Perhaps it took an idiot politician to see the obvious, that the headmaster of the school vanishing would not look good. Sure there were other people to take care of things, but most of them were useless unless told what to do.

"I'll go with the boys, Albus," McGonagall announced, tense but capable. "I won't let them out of my sight." That was a bit funny as Diggory was actually out of their sight now, but Dumbledore did relax and ease his hand away from Potter.

"Yes, thank you Minerva," he said.

"I'll go too," Moody suggested, his mad eye swirling about before settling on Severus. "There are too many death eaters free for Harry to be unguarded this day."

"No, Alastor, nothing more can happen to him within Hogwarts's walls. I need you to take the cup. Do not allow it to touch you or anyone else. We must find out how this happened. How were the anti-portkey wards removed from the pitch? And Severus, I need you to check on your students. Count heads. Check for signs of shock."

"Of course," Severus answered, though he could feel his face twisting into a sneer. Of course it could only possibly be among the Slytherins that students might be responding to their parent's call to their master. Well, the order was obvious but also sensible, to check for shock among the students and it's not like only the Slytherins were his students. He taught all of them. Severus nodded his head and turned to go when Dumbledore grabbed him by the sleeve, pulling him about to face him, the older man's eyes boring into his.

"After you are done, go to my office and wait," he said, his voice low, just for Severus's ears to hear. "Do not go to Tom, not yet. It's too dangerous. I can't lose you. Just wait for me and touch nothing."

"Of course," Severus answered, trying not to grimace at the growing pain in his head. What was wrong with his anti-migraine potion, anyway? Did he make a bad batch?

He turned away from the headmaster just in time to run headlong into the golden boy's sidekicks. Severus struggled hard to hold back from unleashing his tongue on the two brats. After all, he was meant to be checking students for shock, and if any students were likely to be in shock it would be the friends of one of the injured students.

"Professor, what happened? Where's Harry? What happened to the champions? I saw Viktor being taken away and then they said Harry and Cedric were kidnapped, and someone said Harry looked dead…" At least it was the more respectful and intelligent of the two begging for answers, her face far too pale. Unfortunately, the other brat couldn't just stand silently.

"Who cares about Krum and the others, we want to know what happened to Harry? Is he dead?" His freckles stuck out prominently on his white face.

"He's being taken to the hospital wing," Severus answered, deciding there was no real reason to keep them from their friend, and at any rate, if they did happen to be in shock, the hospital wing would be a good place for them. Message imparted, Severus swept around them, allowing his cloak to billow satisfactorily, as he made his way to the stands.

Dumbledore was already there, giving everyone the message that all four champions had survived, that they were being looked after, and that the students were to stay away from the pitch and return to the great hall were refreshments were being prepared for all.

"Yeah, alright," a student's voice shouted from the crowd, "But who won?"

"That will be announced," Dumbledore answered. "Prefects, help our students and guests make their ways to the great hall. Professors will be alongside if you need help."

Then Dumbledore cancelled the spell that raised the volume of his voice and turned, probably to go to the hospital wing.

Severus looked over the mass of students that slowly began to empty from the stands, keeping a particular eye on his own house, not so much because Dumbledore had told him to as because they were his to look after, though it was nice when what Dumbledore wanted and what Severus intended lined up together. Most of his students seemed fine, the older students looking after the younger without Severus having to intervene. Some of his students, however, were not doing as their headmaster asked. They were seeking out their head of house.

"Sir?" Malfoy said, somehow the leader of the small group that approached him despite only being a fourth year.

"Yes, Mr. Malfoy? Why aren't you making your way to the great hall as the headmaster asked?"

"Is it true, sir? About the Dark Lord? Is he back, sir?"

"Now is not the time," Severus hissed back, annoyed that his own students were stupid enough to approach him on that subject, right there in the middle of the pitch. One of his hands found its way to clutch his head without him meaning to; it didn't do to show weakness in front of others. "Go to the great hall, like you were told. We can talk on this later."

The students didn't move, though, their eyes glued on him. No, not just on him. They were staring at his arm, at the hand raised to Severus's head. Slightly embarrassed at his show of weakness, he forced his arm down, only to realize the stare had nothing to do with him clutching at his head and everything to do with the way his sleeve had ridden down slightly in response to his raised arm. The edge of a very distinctive mark could be seen.

"Go to the great hall," Severus ordered again while yanking his sleeve down savagely, his eyes darting around for anyone who could possibly have seen that momentary slip. There was no one. His snakes had made sure of that, surrounding him in such a way that he was hidden. Draco looked at him a moment longer before nodding his head, and his Slytherins finally left him to do as he asked.

Severus could feel his heart beating hard in his chest. That was a slip-up of monumental stupidity. Thirteen years and he had managed not to let his mark show, though for most of those years it had been so faded as to be nearly invisible anyway. And now, on the day the dark lord had apparently returned, he had shown himself to half a dozen students.

Well, so what if he had, he told his hammering heart. It wasn't like people didn't already know; everyone knew how Dumbledore had gotten him out of Azkaban for being a spy. He just had to keep his head down now, stop panicking, perhaps take another headache potion and hope he didn't overdose, and see to getting all the students away in safely, then go and wait like his true master had said.

Everything was fine.

Rounding up and checking all the students took some time. Most were fine, if excited and scared and bouncing about like puppies on a sugar high, but a few had actually managed to injure themselves just from getting caught up in a crowd of other students, all pushing and shoving and trying to look down at the pitch to make out what had happened.

In the end, Severus had to give out no less than fifteen calming draughts, spell closed and clean up three skinned knees, and stabilize one broken arm for Pomfrey to see to later after a first year Hufflepuff had actually managed to fall out of the stands when a particularly rowdy group of fifth years had shoved past. Out of all the students he taught, Severus despised fifth years the most. And two of the calming draughts had been for the Hufflepuff's friends, who were convinced the girl was dead rather than stunned by her fall. A third went to one of the hyperventilating fifth years.

Hagrid managed to stop a couple of boys from trying to get into the remains of the maze where the spider had been trapped; for once not the Weasley twins who Severus supposed to be more concerned with getting into the hospital wing to see Harry than exploring the potentially deadly monsters. Severus let other professors round up the students intent on getting themselves killed by exploring the pitch and followed the majority into the great hall. Thankfully, his carefully crafted reputation along with his glare stopped the majority of students and guests from approaching him for answers to their questions. He could see Sprout being positively besieged by concerned seniors and Flitwick actually looked in danger of being trampled.

Severus remained smugly aloof while he did his duty and began to count heads. He started with his Slytherins and was pleased to see that his prefects and seventh years had done their jobs as none were missing. The Durmstrang students had gathered there as well, though there were two missing there; Krum of course, but also Karkaroff. The idiot had probably run off the moment his dark mark became active. Not to Voldemort, the man was too cowardly for that; he was probably already on a different continent by this point.

Checking on the students from the other houses was more difficult. For one, they were more chaotic and not all sitting at their proper tables. Younger siblings in particular had moved to be with older siblings, whether they were in the same house or not, and of course the people who were not students, like Fudge or Bagman or the few parents allowed to come were all taking up room and moving about and throwing off his count. Most of the younger students were looking on this as a sort of holiday and were running around screaming, while the older students who seemed to understand the gravity of the situation were too worried to even try to keep them in line. The Hufflepuffs were especially upset; apparently there was a rumor going around that Diggory had died.

"Mr. Diggory is not dead," Severus told them severely. "I saw him myself. He was bruised, battered, but very much alive."

This was, more or less, what Sprout had been trying to tell them for the past half hour or so, but for some reason the students seemed more inclined to believe Severus when he said it.

"If he was dead, Snape'd just tell us," Severus heard one of the students whispering to another. "He wouldn't try to hide it to spare us. He wouldn't care about that. Cedric must be alright."

This news didn't stop students from running around. Severus was tempted to start casting sticking charms to the bottoms of the students, but before he could Dumbledore materialized at his side.

"They're safe in Poppy's hands," he said, just in case Severus actually cared. "How are your students? Everyone still here?"

"My Slytherins are fine, as is Miss Smyth after her fall from the stands. The rest of the student body is being difficult."

"Never mind the rest of them, Severus," Dumbledore said, his expression fleetingly that of extreme annoyance before it returned to his usual state of care and concern. "You've done your duty. Go and wait in my office, like I told you to."

"As you wish," Severus answered, this time resisting the urge to clutch at his head and the headache that was growing once again.

At least it was quiet beyond the great hall. Very briefly, Severus toyed with the idea of going to his chambers first to fetch a second headache potion, perhaps a less potent one to avoid an overdose, but even as the thought occurred his feet were already carrying him towards the Headmaster's office. He didn't understand his own reluctance to do as Dumbledore asked anyway. Dumbledore was his master. Dumbledore was his friend.

If only his head would clear, he would remember that, and everything would be fine.


	3. Chapter 3

Severus Snape woke up in his own chamber with the sure knowledge that something was very wrong. His memory of the previous day was…exact. He remembered his dark mark pulling at him. He remembered it punishing him. He remembered Potter and Diggory had been taken away by a portkey. He remembered them returning.

He remembered Dumbledore standing over them, and here his memories somewhat diverged because it was like seeing the same image through two different people's eyes. The one, the loyal servant and friend said he saw a concerned man trying to rouse a boy he saw as his own grandson. The other saw a threat, a looming predator hovering over its defenseless prey.

Both images were true and real. And both parts of Severus, the loyal part and the suspicious part, agreed that he was meant to protect Potter. So he had given him a potion to help him, and if incidentally it brought the boy beyond Dumbledore's reach through unconsciousness…that was just a side effect.

Then he had to look after the other students. Again, the two parts acted together there; Dumbledore asked him to check and he wanted to check. He remembered being told to go to Dumbledore's office.

He remembered having a headache, one approaching migraine levels.

And then…Dumbledore was angry? No, well yes, but it was fear too. He was scared about what had happened because he cared about Potter; he cared about all his students. He even cared for Severus, just about the only person in the entire world who did.

Dumbledore had stormed…no…he had strode into his office and accused…no, Severus had a headache and every noise sounded loud and confrontational, but Dumbledore had simply informed him that Potter, Weasley, and Granger had…been kidnapped? Run off? They were gone anyway and the headmaster was…concerned. He very clearly remembered that. Dumbledore had calmly strode into the room, informed him that three students had gone missing, and he was of course very concerned that it had something to do with the Dark Lord's return.

And his memory was very exact that Dumbledore had politely told him that he would need his services soon, as a spy, if Severus felt up to it. And then…Severus had gone to bed?

The memory was exact and true and not at all logical. Why hadn't Severus helped to look for the missing children? And if Dumbledore didn't want to task him with that, perhaps under the guise of mistrust so as to help dupe Voldemort when the time came, why wasn't Severus at least sent to look after his Slytherins?

He didn't have a headache anymore, but he felt as though he had just gotten over a truly killer migraine. His limbs felt shaky and weak, his skin was covered in dried sweat, and he felt completely unrested for having spent an entire night in bed. It wasn't unlike the feeling of waking up after just getting over the flu. Or what he had often felt like after a rather distressing night of serving his Dark Lord, complete with multiple bouts of crucio, followed by reporting to Dumbledore. Except nothing like that had happened the night before. Unless Dumbledore had sent him to bed because he was ill? He had had a headache, a strong one that his potion hadn't helped, and…

But did the Dark Lord spend his meetings casting out crucio after crucio on his followers? How un-logical was that? Who among all the proud pure bloods would be willing to bow down to such insanity and endure such abuse? He had very distinct and clear memories of this happening nonetheless, but it was again like having double vision. On the one hand there was a monster, full of hate and insanity, who tortured his own followers and demanded that they torture muggles and mudbloods, who set himself up as a Lord. On the other hand, he remembered kind but furious eyes, and a calm voice and a circle…a circle like in King Arthur's time, where everyone is equal no matter their blood, no matter if they are cursed or inhuman.

No, the memory flipped around, and it was the Order of the Phoenix who sat in a circle, who welcomed all. The Dark Lord hated the impure, hated muggles, he wanted to eradicate them. He enjoyed torturing them. Severus remembered that clearly. Severus had been driven towards the Dark Lord by those bullying marauders, by being surrounded by dark peers in Slytherin house, by his own lust for power. Then he had realized what being on the dark side actually entailed: torture and hatred and pain. And then came the prophecy of that which would destroy the Dark Lord, the prophecy that led to Severus joining the light once again, that led to him becoming a spy.

' _The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches…born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies… and the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, but…_ '

But then Severus had been discovered and thrown out and he hadn't heard the end. The Dark Lord had decided to target his beloved Lily, the only person in the world Severus had ever loved. And Severus had gone to Dumbledore and he had begged for Lily to be kept safe. Severus turned away from a life of torture and darkness. He became a spy.

"I have to protect Lily," he remembers saying. "We need someone on the inside, we need to know what the Dark Lord is up to. He has so many people convinced to follow him; he'll believe me if I say I want to be on the right side; on my friends' side. I can do this. I can be a white fish in dark waters. I can be your spy."

He remembered a warm voice saying, "I'm not asking you to do this. Don't do it to impress me. I'm already impressed."

"You're not asking, I'm offering," his own voice answered back. He had said that, to Dumbledore, when he agreed to spy for him, so why was that not Dumbledore's voice speaking to him? That voice, so familiar, so full of pride, of fear, of care. Who had ever cared for Severus so deeply if not Dumbledore?

"Wear this at all times," the voice that was not Dumbledore's said. Something solid was pulled over Severus's head, to rest about his neck. The shadow of a memory was so strong that the Severus of now found himself reaching for his own neck. He still had on his robes from the night before, never having bothered to change for bed. And he felt something there, under the robe and around his neck. His hand jerked back in shock before he slowly went to clasp it again. Had it always been there? All this time, all these years? And he had just forgotten it?

He pulled it out. On the end of a simple black cord was a small wooden block with an inverted pyramid stamped on top. The pyramid was made out of fish; one at the bottom and four at the top, with four indistinct fish-like shapes over that, unless they were meant to be waves. The bottom fish was the most distinct. Most of the fish were white, swimming in a black sea, but the bottom fish had the outline of black scales. It was, altogether, a rather odd choice for a necklace. It looked like the sort of fashion someone who enjoyed Transfiguration might wear, not a Potions Master with a penchant for Defense.

All he knew with absolute certainty was that Dumbledore had not given him the pendant. This was mostly because he had a very clear memory of Dumbledore asking him about it, and then checking it for enchantments like word-triggered portkey charms. It wouldn't be unusual for a spy to have a portkey on his or her person in case of detection, but rather useless in Hogwarts where just about every form of rapid transportation was stopped by the wards.

This wasn't a magical talisman though. Of that he was absolutely certain, though he still couldn't remember why he had it. It was…

"It's the secret to my occlumency," his own voice told someone, though who, he didn't know. He wasn't talking about the necklace; he didn't have it yet. He was in a museum, a muggle art museum, though the memory was indistinct. He couldn't quite make out the artwork they stood in front of, or who he was talking to; all he knew was that he felt warm and happy and at ease in a way he didn't think he could recall ever feeling at any other instance of his life. The closest was probably his feelings towards Lily. He had loved Lily, hadn't he? But it wasn't Lily he was with in that museum.

"It's how I can hide inside my own head," his own voice went on, "How I can present two selves, and both of them are true, and both of them are me. And when someone gets behind the shields, when they find the fish, they don't go looking in between because they've already found me. They never see it's only the half of me I've let them know."

"A light fish swimming in dark waters," the other person said, his voice admiring and strong and amused. It was the voice of someone who wanted to be there and was enjoying himself. Not like when he and Lily had tried a similar trip with James and the gang. Sirius and Peter just snickered together while looking at all the nudes. James had done his best to pretend but you could hear it in his voice. At least Remus appreciated the art, even if he didn't care much about the history.

No…wait…Severus had never gone to an art gallery with the marauders. He had never done anything with them; they were mortal enemies.

The memory flipped around in his head and he was an outsider, watching Lily tow her boys around, spying…

The memory flipped once more and Remus was staring at a Van Gogh and saying, "That's how it feels. How could he know? Was he…"

"He was a muggle," Severus answers back. Lucius had certainly spent enough time trying to prove otherwise, convinced no mere mortal could contribute such art to the world. Remus looked unconvinced, so Severus tried the same explanation he had given Lucius. "It's just how he saw the world. He was unique even among muggles. They called him mentally ill." He didn't say, 'and he killed himself', because he didn't want to imagine Remus taking that bit of information to heart, not when he seemed so moved by the man's paintings…

No, the memory flipped again, he never spoke with Lupin, he wasn't even friends with Lily past fifth year, Remus had said that to Lily while he spied on them and it was Lily who replied…

The headache was coming back, bringing nausea with it. Coupled with his shaky limbs and the cold shivers running down his spine, Severus began to wonder if he wasn't truly ill after all.

Still he stared at the image of the fish on his pendant, and then, instinctively, he flipped it over. It went easily, being strung in such a way that he could well imagine it was meant to be flipped. At the same time, it wasn't obvious at all; Dumbledore had never noticed anything but the fish. He had never flipped it over, or if he had he hadn't paid attention.

On the other side was a pyramid of birds, black birds flying in a white sky. Severus stared at the birds, then flipped it over and saw fish. He flipped it again, and he saw birds.

And slowly, the fuzzy bit of memory, of him and another in a museum, started to fill in. He couldn't see the other man, but he could see the art piece they stood in front of. It was a black and white print, two pyramids forming a diamond, and the birds came out of the spaces in between the fish, or perhaps the fish formed in the spaces in between the birds. It was an artwork he knew well.

The pendant wasn't a secret portkey to be triggered by a secret word. The pendant was the trigger. It was to remind him that he was a spy. It was to remind him that he could call on help. It was to remind him about…

"Escher," he said out loud. "M. C. Escher."

There was a pop. A house elf stood in front of him. Severus just had time to startle, one hand grasping at his wand, to stare into large eyes, before the elf reached out a long fingered hand, snagged hold of Severus's robe, and then they were gone.

The wards let them go. It was only a house elf, after all.

Somewhere above Severus's empty chambers, several instruments in the headmaster's office whistled, whirled, and otherwise made some commotion. They made their commotion in vain.

Severus was long gone and far away, before even he had time to realize what had happened. In fact, he had just finished the motion of drawing his wand when his mind caught up and recognized that he wasn't in his chamber, that he was in someone else's bedroom. That someone was sitting up in the bed, their own wand drawn defensively, but the man made no motion to cast a spell. His eyes were wide and shocked. His face was pale, his limbs skinny to the point of frailty, but there was a familiar strength about him, no matter how unwell his body appeared.

"I know you," Severus said, his brain feeling oddly muddled and slow. "You were in the museum."

"Severus," said the man in the bed, his wand arm dropping to rest on his covers.

"I am being called by Master Severus," said the house elf, "I am waiting long years, but I am never not waiting for my call. Now Master Severus is calling for Escher, and Escher is bringing Master Severus home to his Tom."

"Tom," said Severus, and that was when it all went wrong. Because something else heard Severus say 'Tom', something buried inside his own head, something alien and wrong, and inside Severus's head it answered. Without quite understanding what was happening, Severus had his wand aimed at the man in the bed, moving in a horrifically familiar pattern.

"Avada Kedavra," a voice said using Severus's throat, his tongue, his breath, and green light shot from his wand and hit the man in the bed dead on.

And then Severus dropped his wand, crumbled to the floor, and screamed.


	4. Chapter 4

Harry Potter did not wake up in the hospital wing of Hogwarts. Nor was he in his dorm room. In fact, upon opening his eyes and assessing the situation, he was fairly certain that his current bed wasn't in Hogwarts at all, though he hadn't ruled out it being in Slytherin.

The bed was a large four poster with elaborately carved posts depicting serpents climbing up trees into the luxurious green canopy. His pillows were soft and bountiful, the mattress rather like lying on a cloud, and the covers went from silky sheets to velvety blankets to a billowy duvet. Harry noted this all with great attention to detail, in part from the confusion of waking up in a strange, if nice, bed, and in part because, thanks to thin gauzy curtains hanging down from the canopy, the bed was all he could see. Despite his limited view of the room, he got a sense of airiness by the way the curtains gently swayed and let in soft sunlight.

Harry took a moment to appreciate the bed before he remembered why he had expected to wake up in the hospital wing. He checked himself for the remembered pain and felt none. In fact, he felt well rested and a bit hungry. Cautiously, and somewhat regretfully, he shoved away the covers and got his first look at his leg.

There was a silvery scar where the spider had bit him, but nothing more. When he checked where Wormtail had cut him, there wasn't even that. There was no more blood or grime or even bruises anywhere on his body. He also noted that he had been stripped to his underwear. That was embarrassing enough before he realized that the pants he was wearing wasn't even his own.

Trying hard not to think about this, he crawled to the foot of the massive bed and pushed the curtains aside so he could look out.

The room was about as large and luxurious as the bed had suggested, with dark wooden walls hung with forested tapestries and paintings, a thick, blood red carpet on the floor, a green sofa and two plush chairs in a corner, bookcases, an elaborate vanity and wardrobe, a stone fireplace, windows large enough to be doors with a table and chairs laid out by them, chandeliers, and two smaller beds that looked rather out of place, as though brought in in a hurry rather than being meant to go with the room. Despite this, their sheets and pillows were just as nice as his own.

He more or less noted most of this as well as he could without his glasses on, which is to say he noted the colors and the shapes without making out the details. What his eyes were mostly drawn to wasn't the décor anyway. Hermione and Ron were both in the room. He knew it was them from the familiar blur of red hair and the mane of brown, not to mention he could hear their voices whispering urgently to each other. They hadn't noticed Harry yet. They were both in front of a heavy wooden door, fighting to look through the keyhole.

"Ron?" Harry whispered, "Hermione?"

They stopped their struggles at once and spun about to look at him, though they were too far away for him to properly read their expressions. That was soon solved when Hermione immediately leapt to her feet and ran to throw her arms around him. He tried not to blush at the fact that he was still mostly undressed.

"Harry, you're awake!" she said, finally letting him go and taking a step back. "Are you alright? They said the venom was gone and you were fine but, well, they did kidnap us and they are death eaters, so we weren't sure if we could trust them."

"What?" Harry asked, feeling startled more than anything.

"We're in Malfoy Manor, mate" said Ron. "As far as prisons go, it's not bad. At least the food is decent." Harry thought he might even have been smiling, but it could also have been a grimace; either was possible with Ron and he was still too far away for Harry to read his expression, not even when he squinted.

"Oh, Harry, your glasses," Hermione said, and she ran around the side of the bed, only to return a moment later with his glasses in her hand. Once he could see properly again, he found Ron looked bemused more than anything. Neither of his friends looked frightened or angry or anything like he'd expect them to look if they had really been kidnapped. What was going on?

"What do you mean, we've been kidnapped," Harry asked. "And is there anything for me to wear?"

"There're robes in the wardrobe," Hermione answered. "They've been quite kind, really. They even offered us our own rooms, but we didn't want to separate. The only thing they won't do is let us out. He was even quite polite when he insisted on kidnapping us."

"Who?!" Harry demanded. This was beginning to be infuriating. He hadn't even had a chance to process what Voldemort had told him before he was rescued, and now he was kidnapped again, and Hermione couldn't even give him a straight answer about who had done it, let alone how or why. Also, he thought that at least Ron might have thought to go and grab a robe for him, instead of expecting him to let go of the curtains and prance across the room in front of Hermione in just his pants. Sure she was one of his best friends, but she was still a girl.

"Sorry," Hermione said, "I'm not telling this properly. It started after you were sent to the hospital wing, and Ron and I went after you. We wanted to know that you were alright."

"I wanted to know that you were alright," Ron interjected. "Hermione kept going on about poor Viktor, and how was Cedric, and such."

"They were injured too, Ronald," Hermione pointed out, "And of course I was most worried about Harry. You looked dead from up in the stands you know. But Professor Snape told us you weren't, and he didn't even try to stop us from going to see you."

"Yep, good ol' Snape," Ron agreed, rolling his eyes behind Hermione's back. Harry didn't know whether to laugh at the pair of them or to groan at them taking forever to get to the important bit. He already knew he had been injured and taken to the hospital wing. He wanted to know what happened next.

"Professor McGonagall was pushing you on a gurney and you looked ghastly," Hermione said.

"Gushing this puss and blood from your leg," Ron agreed, his voice almost cheerful but his face paler than normal. "She had to transfigure something into a bucket to stop you making a trail on the floor."

"Yes, thank you for those details, but how did we get from there to Malfoy's manor?" Harry demanded. Hermione gave him an apologetic look and continued the story.

"We got to the hospital wing and Madame Pomfrey left off fussing over the other champions right away. She just said, 'Severus's anti-venom?' and Professor McGonagall said it was, and so Madame Pomfrey said, 'He'll need a blood replenisher then,' and that's what she gave you. She kept having to give you more and she said she couldn't close up the wound until it was done expelling the venom."

"Diggory came in then, with his parents," Ron interjected. "He was all shaky and pale, but not half dead like you, and he kept saying that You Know Who was back, that the cup was a portkey and he had been knocked out, and when he came to he saw you all tied up and there was You Know Who. That he was alive and had all his death eaters around him. He got a bit shouty in the end, and Pomfrey put him to sleep; she said he needed the rest. Dumbledore wasn't happy about that; I think he wanted to know more about You Know Who. Oh, right, Dumbledore came in after Diggory. He wanted you and Diggory to wake up, but Pomfrey chased him off. Remind me never to get on her wrong side; her tongue is worse than my mum's when she's in a rage."

"It wasn't that bad," Hermione insisted. "She didn't even shout."

"She didn't need to," Ron insisted. "You didn't see her face; you were all distracted between Harry and Krum. They say Dumbledore is the world's greatest wizard, and he just about turned tail and ran."

As Harry didn't currently know how he felt about the headmaster, he wasn't sure how to respond to this news.

"Anyway," said Hermione, "a bit later, just after Madame Pomfrey emptied your bucket and gave you another blood replenisher, Professor Dumbledore came back. Well, we thought it was him, anyway. And he said that it was urgent, that death eaters were coming and they knew Harry was there, and he insisted you had to come with him, and us too, because it wasn't a safe place for students."

"Pomfrey lay into him again," Ron interjected, "Going on about wards and sick patients and such, but he didn't back down this time. He told Pomfrey to see to Krum and Fleur and Diggory. And their parents started all talking at her at once, and wanting to know what was to be done, and on and on about how unsafe Hogwarts was and such nonsense."

"It's not nonsense," Hermione said, "Not with all the accidents that keep happening at the school. I mean, are portkeys even supposed to be possible at the school? And what about the basilisk? Or the whomping willow? Or the troll? Or Fluffy?"

"Well, still, Hogwarts has got to be better than some French school, or a school for the Dark Arts," Ron insisted. "And anyway, that's not the point. The point is, they were being all distracting, and Dumbledore pulled out his wand and levitated you, bucket and oozing wound and all, and we walked right out through this hidden door we didn't even know was there and Pomfrey didn't do a thing to stop us. Dumbledore led us down about a million stairs, and into this empty classroom, and then he just stopped and threw about three different locking charms at the door, and all the furniture besides. It was starting to freak us out a bit, to be honest."

"I asked him if he had enough blood replenisher for you," Hermione agreed, "And he just sort of looked at us with this strange expression and then he said, 'They'll have everything he needs.' So of course we asked who."

"He was getting weirder by the minute," Ron insisted, "And he didn't answer. He just looked at the barricaded door. And then we heard a crash from the other side, like someone was trying to force their way in. So I went for my wand, only, it wasn't there. It wasn't in my pocket. And Hermione didn't have hers either. And Dumbledore looked right at us and said he was sorry, but we had to go. Then he turned and he blasted a wall. And he levitated you again and he just ran. He didn't even remember the bucket this time, and you were leaving a trail of blood the whole way."

"We ran with you, of course," said Hermione. "We didn't know what was going on, but we weren't about to just leave you with him. I think we knew it wasn't Dumbledore by that point, except there wasn't really time to think, and we just sort of went along with it. Anyway, the man who looked like Dumbledore led us right into the Forbidden Forest. It was fully dark out by then and no one was about to see us run. I think everyone was still in the Great Hall or hanging out outside the Hospital Wing. And then after he went a bit of a ways, he just stopped. We could hear something coming towards us. I don't know what; we never saw. Before it could reach us, the fake Dumbledore shouted 'Winky!'. And Winky just popped up next to us."

"She was even more mental than usual," Ron said. "Blubbering and crying 'master', 'master'. And Dumbledore told her to stop all that fuss and fetch us all to Malfoy Manor right away. So I suppose we knew something was really wrong then. But we didn't quite make up our mind to run for it. He still had you anyway, and you were unconscious and oozing blood and we'd never have managed. So when Winky held out her arm and told us to grab it, we did."

"She apparated us to this sort of foyer, all cold marble," Hermione continued the tale. "And Dumbledore started twitching, and his hair beard was shrinking and his hair was darkening. And several wizards came running in, aiming their wands at us. We were sure they might kill us or torture us or at least threaten. But the man who wasn't Dumbledore at all just said, 'I've got Harry Potter and his friends. Here are their wands. I have to get back before Moody is missed.' He didn't look at all like Dumbledore now, though he did look familiar. And he took out a potion and drank it, and then he really was Moody."

"Moody without his eye and all," Ron said, his eyes wide. "It was weird, and a bit gross. But he had the eye and everything in his pocket, and he popped it in. And then he said, 'My Hogwarts chambers, Winky,' and she apparated him away."

"Though I don't see how she could have gone straight to his chambers," added Hermione, "because you can't apparate in Hogwarts."

"House elves are different, you know that," Harry pointed out.

"Well, if they are so different, why'd he have to take us all the way to the Forbidden Forest," Hermione answered back. Harry didn't have an answer for that.

"So…" he said instead, "someone who wasn't Dumbledore and wasn't Moody kidnapped us and had Winky bring us to Malfoy manor. And then…they locked us in this room?"

"More or less," Ron agreed. "There was a bit of an awkward moment when the death eaters kept aiming their wands at us, and we didn't have ours, and you were just lying on the floor and bleeding. And then Malfoy, I mean Malfoy Sr., not our prat Malfoy, he walked in, looked at us, and said, 'Why is there a boy bleeding on the floor?'. I didn't even know what was going to happen next…"

"His mouth was agape," Hermione added, earning a glare from Ron.

"I was just confused," Ron insisted, "So anyway, I didn't know what to do, when Hermione just opens her mouth and says, 'He was bit by a spider, and he was given anti-venom and he needs blood replenishers until the wound can be closed.' I thought she had gone mental."

"I was being sensible. If they didn't want us dead, they'd need to help us, and for that they'd need to know what we needed. Anyway, it worked. They weren't even heavy handed in escorting us to a room…not this room, it wasn't ready yet. I think it was an actual hospital room, I suppose the manor is big enough to have one of its own. They kept us there for hours until Mrs. Malfoy said she could close up the wound, and then it was just a matter of cleaning you up. She said you'd sleep for a bit and offered us all rooms, but we said we'd stay with you and they let us. They even transfigured beds for us."

"Being kidnapped was getting a bit boring, actually," Ron said. "Just watching you sleep, staring at the peacocks out the window, watching Hermione read."

"You could have read as well," Hermione pointed out.

"Sure, poetry or French books," Ron agreed, making faces at Harry. Hermione rolled her eyes again. Harry very carefully chose not to comment on that.

"So how long have we been here?" he asked instead.

"Not so very long, really," Hermione answered. "Just one night. We've just been too nervous to sleep, so we've had the time to get bored."

"Until the screaming started," Ron added.

"Screaming?" Harry demanded.

"You didn't hear it?" Hermione asked, sounding surprised. "I thought that must have been what finally woke you. We were trying to see through the door and listen in to find out what was happening. Someone just started screaming and screaming, for five whole minutes, at least. And then there were running feet and voices and it just…cut off."

"I figure it must be some other kidnapped bloke in the next cell being tortured by the death eaters or something," Ron said. "I knew this posh prison was too good to be true."

"We don't know what's happened," Hermione insisted. "You woke up, of course, and so now you know everything we do."

"Right," Harry said. He considered this. He had been kidnapped, again, and was once more in the hands of Voldemort and his death eaters. That was either very bad or, and he still hadn't had time to process his last kidnapping but the doubts it had raised couldn't be denied, or that was very good. But first things first.

"Hermione, close your eyes. I'm getting dressed."

"It's not like you're naked," she answered, though she nonetheless did cover her eyes. Harry quickly scampered over to the wardrobe and grabbed the first robe he saw. It went over his head and puddled at his feet, at least two feet longer than he was. This only lasted for a moment, however, as the robe immediately began to shrink around him. He had just enough time to panic that the robe was cursed and was about to strangle him to death when it stopped. It didn't strangle him at all. In fact, it fit him perfectly.

"Can I look yet?" Hermione demanded, though why she bothered, Harry didn't know, because she had already taken her hands away to see for herself. "Not bad. Green suits you."

"Suits you?" Ron demanded, outraged, "What did you choose green for? You look like a Slytherin."

"I like green," Harry answered defiantly, though in truth, if he had taken more time to choose a robe, he probably would have gone for a different color. Now that it was on, though, he wasn't about to change.

"It brings out your eyes," Hermione insisted. Ron glowered.

"Right," said Harry. Second things second. "Now it's my turn to share."

And Harry told them everything that had happened in the graveyard. It was actually helpful to share the story in full; he hadn't had time to process what he had seen and overheard, and now he could. Saying it all out loud made it clearer than ever that something was very, very wrong. Hermione said it best, in the contemplative silence that followed his story.

"We've been lied to."

Whether the liar was Voldemort or Dumbledore, none of them were certain.

Then the door to their prison opened and Lucius Malfoy stood before them. He looked rather different than Harry's memories suggested he should. He was pale, like his son, but he lacked the cold malice that Harry expected. Nor did he look threatening; he didn't even have out his wand. He looked a bit troubled.

"I'm glad to see you are well, Mr. Potter. And your companions as well. I would like to invite you all to breakfast with me," he told them. "And then all will be explained."

"Who was that screaming?" Ron demanded. None of them moved to go with the man as they waited for the answer.

"That was an attempt on the life of Lord Voldemort by the Dark Lord," Malfoy Sr. answered. "Thankfully, the killing curse requires intent to kill along with saying the words, and the Dark Lord's puppet was able to suppress the Dark Lord's will."

"Isn't Lord Voldemort the Dark Lord?" Harry asked. Hermione and Ron flinched but otherwise remained strong at his side, awaiting the answer.

"No," said Malfoy. "That is among the things that must be discussed. Do please join me."

Harry once again looked at his friends. They looked tired but willful and they nodded their heads at him. They would follow his lead.

"Alright," Harry told Malfoy. "We'll come." It was time they got some answers. Besides, he was hungry, and Ron had said the food here was good.


	5. Chapter 5

The breakfast room was much cozier than Harry had expected. Instead of an almost comically long dinner table in a massive dining hall, made up with six forks and cloth napkins and porcelain plates under diamond chandeliers, Malfoy led them down a short set of stairs, through a sort of greenhouse and out onto a balcony overlooking an impressive flower garden, complete with a hedge maze, fountains, and statues.

The balcony itself had flowering vines climbing about its railing and hanging off the walls, filling the small open space with a pleasantly sweet scent. It also held a round table large enough to comfortably sit six. Indeed, there were six places set, though not in the elaborate manner Harry and his friends might have feared. The table did have a cloth over it, but it was an unadorned white one that didn't turn out to be made of anything more exotic than cotton, and the silverware was set in a familiar and comfortable arrangement with no more than one fork, one spoon, and one butter knife per person with a white cotton napkin neatly folded beneath the fork on the left. All in all, it was posher than they generally went for at breakfast time, but not as posh as they might have expected in such a manor.

Malfoy sat himself with his back to the view and Harry sat down across from him. Hermione and Ron immediately took the chairs on either side of him. It felt surreal. Yesterday at this same time, Harry had been a bundle of nerves preparing for the final task. Yesterday, he had been certain he understood the basics of the war that had ended thirteen years before. Yesterday he had been absolutely certain that Voldemort was evil, that Voldemort killed his parents, and that Dumbledore was kind and good. Yesterday felt like at least a decade ago.

Now he was sitting at the same table as a confirmed death eater, while Voldemort roamed somewhere nearby and he was questioning everything.

Breakfast appeared in much the same manner food always appeared at Hogwarts, filling the small table with simple but appetizing foods. There were French baguettes, fruits, yogurt, eggs, sausage, beans, and lightly toasted slices of bread, all steaming hot or properly cool according to the item. Ron started serving himself at once, as did Malfoy, though Ron paused when he noticed his friends hesitating.

"It's not poisoned," Malfoy said. "What would be the point? If I wanted to poison you, I would, and there's nothing you'd be able to do to stop me."

This was so completely true that even Hermione started to pile some fruit onto her plate. The food, as Harry discovered when he finally did taste it, was good. It helped that whatever ailments he had been healed from the night before had left him with a ravenous appetite.

Harry took the time in-between bites to try and formulate his questions into something more sensible than 'What the hell is going on?!'. If his mom and dad had followed Voldemort, why was everyone else so certain they had fought against him. Didn't Voldemort hate people like his mom, like Hermione? Didn't Voldemort and his followers kill and torture and terrorize good people? What was this about Voldemort not being the Dark Lord?

And then, while they were still finishing up their plates and before Harry could decide what to demand first, Malfoy looked past them towards the balcony entrance and an odd look came across his face. It was something like concern mixed with surprise before it smoothed into mere respect and the man stood up.

Harry startled to his feet as well, spinning around to see who had so startled the unflappable Malfoy.

It was Voldemort.

He looked slightly less pale than he had in the graveyard, though he still seemed ill. He also looked powerful, and, somehow, human in a way Harry had never associated with Voldemort before.

"My Lord," said Malfoy from behind them. "You are feeling better?"

"I know you thought it best to talk with the children yourself," Voldemort said, his voice stronger than his body appeared, "But there are some things that must be addressed directly. Please, do sit down. I'll join you."

Malfoy sat at once. Harry and his friends stayed standing, watching warily as Voldemort approached them, circling the table to take the seat directly next to Hermione. Of course, he had to sit next to one of them; there were only six seats and their avoiding sitting directly next to Malfoy only left two options.

It was only after both Malfoy and Voldemort were sitting that Harry started to feel a bit silly hovering over them and sat down as well. Ron and Hermione had a quick but mostly silent battle when Ron suddenly wanted to switch and put Hermione further away from Voldemort's side. Hermione won by simply sitting down and ignoring Ron's attempts until Ron gave up and took his own seat back.

Voldemort didn't seem to notice; he had already started piling food onto his own plate. Harry was mildly surprised to see him go for the French baguette and the fruit; it was probably a bit silly but the sort of man Voldemort had become in his head over the years was the sort who would go for meat first, and raw meat at that, while drinking the blood of the innocent. A Voldemort who calmly ate bread spread with cheese and fruit dipped in yogurt somehow just seemed wrong.

Ron started to continue eating as well, his eyes firmly locked upon Voldemort. Harry cautiously ate the last of his sausage, his stomach starting to feel uneasy and suggesting that more food might not be the answer. Hermione seemed to be done as well, but then she had always been a light eater when it came to breakfast, so that might have nothing to do with who was sitting next to her.

Malfoy, who had up to that moment seemed more or less finished eating, nonetheless deigned to take up a final strawberry, perhaps to stop his lord from having to dine alone. The strawberry finished, however, he patted his face with his napkin and settled his silverware across his plate. The plate instantly vanished.

Hermione instantly copied him and her plate vanished as well. Harry stared at their empty places, half wondering if this was some sort of wandless magic spell that Hermione had picked up somewhere to banish her plate while most of his mind was occupied with his questions and so left no room for proper reasoning about dinner plates. Otherwise, he might have caught on before Hermione gave him an exasperated look, whispered, 'It's the way the French signal to waiters that they are finished,' and aligned Harry's silverware for him so that his plate, too, would be vanished. Ron clutched his own plate possessively and carefully slid his spoon away from Hermione's reach.

"Do go ahead and begin, Lucius," Voldemort instructed.

So, while Voldemort and Ron finished their meals, Malfoy finally began to do just that.

"To begin with, I am afraid all three of you are probably under enchantments, and heavy ones at that. Are you familiar with the memory curses?"

"Lockhart tried to cast that on us second year," Harry answered. "He was using obliviate to change people's memories to take credit for their achievements."

"Ah, yes. Another one of Dumbledore's…interesting choices for a suitable professor. I believe Dumbledore had a certain soft spot for the man who shared in his aptitude and inclinations, if on a smaller scale."

"You're saying we've been obliviated," Hermione said, her voice calm but her body held rigid, her hands neatly folded over the table. "Not just that. You're saying the headmaster is the one who altered our memories."

"It's one of his favorite methods," Malfoy answered. "It's how he's managed to stay in his power as long as he has. Why paint a target on his back as a Dark Lord, when he can transfer that target to someone else and style himself as the head of the Light? He can do as he likes and his own name is never tarnished. And this way, his own enemies become his followers. It's hard enough to fight a man like him before he surrounds himself by good people as a shield. Can you imagine having a person you know, who you may even love, who has been convinced you are evil incarnate and is acting accordingly, throwing curses in your direction? The only way to stop yourself being hurt is to react in kind, and yet, how can you?"

"So you're saying Dumbledore is the true Dark Lord, but he changes people's memories to make himself seem good?" Harry demanded.

"You've heard the darkest tales, have you not, of the terrible acts committed by the death eaters? Of those we killed, those we tortured. How we'd leave our mark in the sky over a house we'd been to?"

"And those were all done by Dumbledore?"

"No. He has worse spells than obliviate. Sometimes he uses imperio. And he has a knack for finding the truly villainous."

"If you're telling the truth, if my memories have been altered, what have they been altered from. Did you give Tom Riddle's diary to Ginny? Did you torture your house elf. If my parents were on your side, why do Sirius and Remus, their best friends, seem to think otherwise."

"Excellent questions," said a voice that didn't belong to Lucius. It seemed Voldemort was ready to participate. "And I have a rather good one of my own. My dear friend Lucius, you are enlightened, are you not? You and my followers have failed to be blinded by the Dark Lord. You know how truly manipulative he is, the atrocities he has committed against others, against children. You know this quite well, do you not?"

"I do. I've never strayed from my belief in you, my lord. Not once, the entire time you were…gone."

"I'm sure you haven't," Voldemort replied. "But answer me this. Knowing everything you know, why did you choose to send your son to a school run by such a man?"

There was a very long moment of silence while Lucius's calm façade broke into a pale, wide-eyed look of confusion, then shock.

"I…Hogwarts is the best wizarding school…"

"You sent your eleven year old son into the hands of a psychopath. And so did all my followers who had children, every last one of you. You, who knew the truth, still sent your children, alone, to Hogwarts."

Malfoy didn't seem to know what to say. He seemed to even have forgotten how to form his usual mask of calm and disdain that had seemed permanently welded to his face. Voldemort turned to look at Harry and his friends.

"The Dark Lord has positioned himself as the keeper of the keys to the wizarding world. There isn't a magical child in Britain who doesn't pass through his school. He has seven years with each and every one of them. Even those who now recognize him for who he is, even those who know his evil, are still not immune to his influence. I'll bet if you asked any one of my followers why they sent their children to that school they'll give you the same response; Hogwarts is the best wizarding school."

"I thought about sending him to Durmstang but… Narcissa said it was too far away, and of course Draco needed to go to the best school…"

Malfoy sounded a bit lost, a bit like he was in shock himself.

Oddly enough, it was this bit of humanizing of Malfoy, the reminder that the man was the father of Draco, that also reminded Harry that he was in the presence of the supposed enemy and that he couldn't just take everything they said as the truth. Draco, after all, got his superior attitude towards muggleborn from somewhere.

"You gave Ginny Tom Riddle's diary in our second year," Harry said again, trying to sound factual rather than accusatory. "She was a first year, eleven years old, and that diary made her release a basilisk on other students. It made her kill roosters and write messages in blood. In the end, it tried to drain her life so that Tom Marvolo Riddle could return to life. His diary…your diary that you gave into Malfoy's keeping, tried to kill me with a basilisk, just as he…you…had already killed a young girl many years ago and framed Hagrid. I met your house elf, Malfoy. He had to injure himself for disobeying you. He was so happy when I tricked you into giving him my sock. Are you going to tell me that my second year was a lie? That you didn't give that diary to Ginny? That the diary wasn't Tom Riddle's? That your own son doesn't going around calling people like Hermione 'Mudblood'?"

With each word, Harry almost felt like a fog was clearing in his head. What was he thinking, trusting Voldemort, trusting Malfoy? Sure, what they had said might be plausible, and Dumbledore had always seemed a bit strange to him but…evil? The Dark Lord? Why look for a complex explanation when there was a simple one; Voldemort was doing right then exactly what he accused Dumbledore of doing, trying to manipulate them into believing he was actually good.

"And what about my first year?" Harry went on, his focus on Voldemort. Voldemort stared calmly back. "You were on the back of Quirrell's head! You tried to kill me. You told me there was no good or evil, only power, and those too weak to take it."

"Actually, what I said was, 'There is no light or dark magic, only power, and those who abuse it'. If you agree to allow us to attempt to untangle your false memories from your true ones, you shall see for yourself."

Harry stared, not sure how to answer that.

"Let me see," Voldemort continued, a far off look in his yes. "Your first year…my first great attempt at returning to life. Quirinus found my disembodied spirit and attempted to help me. Your good and admirable headmaster hid a dangerous object, guarded by still more dangerous and deadly traps, in a school full of curious children. My spy had been left alone too long in the headmaster's power to be of much service."

"You cursed my broom during the quiditch match," Harry said. "Snape stopped you. Except we thought Snape was the one cursing me; Hermione set him on fire and he stumbled into you."

"We weren't trying to kill you," Voldemort answered. "How stupid is that. We had a million and one chances to get you alone in a much less obvious place than a Quiditch match. We were one of your teachers, after all. Getting you alone and unguarded would have been easy."

Harry had to admit that Voldemort had a point; all he needed to do would have been to give him detention. Or, if he had wanted to be less obvious, just pull him aside one day as he walked down the hall. Harry wouldn't have dared to run away from a professor, and they hadn't even suspected Quirrell enough to think him dangerous; they had all suspected Snape.

"So you weren't cursing my broom?"

"Oh, I was. I just didn't want to kill you. Dumbledore was planning something with you and I was trying to remove you from his games. If Severus hadn't cast the counter curse, I'd have secretly cushioned your fall then cursed you with a sleeping curse, to make it seem you had some sort of head injury."

"Well that was stupid of you," said Ron. He had finally given up the pretense of devouring the table to join in the discussion, calmly placing his silverware so that his plate would be removed. Voldemort actually jumped slightly in his seat, though not in anger at his words. It seemed that he had been staring so intently at Harry that he had forgotten his friends were even there.

"Was it?" Voldemort asked, turning his gaze towards Ron. Harry looked at him as well, trying to figure out where he was going with this.

"If you wanted to protect students, I mean. Because Harry has a lot of friends; and if he had been down for the count we would have been ten times as motivated to find out more about the philosopher's stone. And if Dumbledore really were manipulating us into a confrontation, do you think he'd have backed down because Harry was sleeping? He'd have used one of us instead. You don't take down a pawn with your queen when the other pawns are in position to defend. That's a good way to lose your queen."

"An interesting analogy. And how would you play a game of chess when half your opponent's pieces consist of people you couldn't bear to take down, and the other half are truly evil, and they all wear masks to hide which is which so the only piece you really dare to take is the king himself?"

"Are we talking some sort of zombie chess?" Ron asked, sounding suddenly intrigued.

"The fact is, you can tell us whatever you want," Harry said, before his best friend could enter into a surreal conversation about chess with his supposedly greatest enemy. "Either you're lying, or you're not. What we really need is some form of proof. Can you prove that our memories have been altered, without going into our heads and trying to alter them further? Can you prove you are who you say you are and that our headmaster is who you say he is? Because at the moment it's your word against my actual memories of the past four years. It's your words against my memory of the death of my parents."

Voldemort looked thoughtful.

"There are three memories you've named that you have been most concerned about, three memories that contradict what we have told you," Voldemort said. "There is the night your parents died, there are the events of your first year, in particular the day I went after the philosopher's stone, and there are the events of your second year involving my diary and the release of a basilisk on the students of your school. Is that correct?"

"For now," Harry agreed. Those, at least, were the times he directly faced Voldemort, and if his memory of those moments had been tampered with then he needed to know. Those memories were the most damning evidence he had that Voldemort was, in fact, evil.

"And I suppose our actions to you so far, which have remained civilized, as you noted by the lack of chains and torture, won't be enough to convince you that we are, in fact, civilized? What reason would we have to trick you?"

"Not being able to see someone's end game is not the same as them not having one," Ron answered.

"And the fact that I haven't simply gone into your heads, as I claim Dumbledore to have done, and altered your memories that way?" Voldemort asked. "Does that not suggest, by the very fact I'm using words and not forcing the issue with magic or potions, that I am sincere?"

"There are ways to resist magic and potions," Hermione answered. "Harry already proved adept this year at resisting the imperio curse. But if you get someone's heart, you have them."

"I can't give you back your memories of those events, but I can show you mine. I warn you, it may be painful; your own mind will be fighting to make two conflicting memories match up. Or it may simply be like watching a film and feel disconnected from your own experience of the events. However, will you accept my memories as a form of proof?"

"They might help," Harry said. "But I don't know if we'll believe them."

"I thought as much. What we really need here, in this situation, is a death eater you can trust."

"That might help," Harry agreed. But of course there was no death eater he could trust. How could there be? Even if he produced Snape, Harry didn't really trust the man enough believe him, even if he had saved his life. And who else could Voldemort call on? The mother or father of another Slytherin at his school, another student who he probably disliked if not outright hated? "It seems we're at a bit of a stale mate."

"Not quite," Voldemort answered. "I will prepare to share you my memories, and in the meantime, perhaps you can reacquaint yourself with an old friend.

Someone walked through the door towards them. It was not anyone Harry recognized. He glanced towards Voldemort in confusion, but the other man was merely giving the newcomer a questioning look with a raised eyebrow.

"My lord," said the stranger. "Master Snape has awakened."

Harry only saw it because he had been looking at the man so intently, but something in Voldemort's face somehow softened and tightened at the same time, a bit like a flinch in the face of pain except more painful: hope. Voldemort stood, only for the newcomer to hole out a restraining hand.

"My lord…we believe you shouldn't…we believe…"

"I'm still a trigger," Voldemort answered, holding himself stiffly. "Of course. I must…I must retrieve my pensieve. Now, Lucius, you can see our guests to their room, and allow Remus his visit, before the man breaks down another door. Excuse me."

And before Harry could ask any more questions, or make any remark about 'Remus' and did he mean 'Remus Lupin', Voldemort had swept from the room with far more style than his weakened state suggested should be possible and was gone.


End file.
